FSF Magazine, June 2007 Read online

  My integrator shivered on my shoulder, its fur unable to compensate adequately for the rapid heat loss occasioned by its lack of mass and the ceaseless wind. I opened my mantle and placed it inside, supported by my arm pressed against my side. I ducked my head against the withering passage of cold air and made my way to the slope the ship had indicated. It was the base of a broad upheaval of dark rock, veined in gray, that swept up to a ridge topped by wind-eroded formations that resembled some madman's concept of a castle.

  I moved along the base of the slope and soon found a vertical crevice. My eye warned me that it was too narrow to admit me, as I found for sure when I sought to slip sideways through the gap. My assistant resumed his place on my shoulder while I made the attempt, then crawled back inside my clothing, shivering as I stood back and considered my options.

  They were scant. “Can you contact the ship?” I asked my integrator, peering down the neck of my garment. Its small face took on the familiar momentary blankness, then it said, “Yes,” followed by, “it wants to know if you have found its employer."

  "Tell it that it would be premature to say."

  "It has broken the connection."

  I brought a lumen from my pocket and shone it into the opening while I peered within. After an arm's length, the crack widened into a narrow passage, its dusty floor sloping down. I saw no bodies, though I did see several sets of footprints descending into the darkness. None returned.

  I shut off the lumen then looked again. At first I saw nothing, but as my eyes accustomed themselves to the blackness, I detected a faint glow from deeper inside the hill. I sniffed and caught a stronger whiff of sour air.

  I set my assistant to the same task and its more powerful sensory apparatus confirmed both the odor and the dim light. “The passage turns a short distance in,” it said. “The light comes from around the corner."

  "I smelled no putrefaction,” I said.

  "Nor do I."

  "Do you hear anything?"

  It cocked its head. “I believe I hear breathing. Very shallow. Something at rest."

  "Go in there, see what is beyond the turn in the passage, then report to me."

  But instead of hopping down and entering the fissure, it burrowed back beneath my mantle and said, “No."

  "You cannot say ‘no’ to me,” I said. “You are my integrator."

  "Four men, each larger and stronger than I, have gone into that cave and not come out,” it said. “Something is breathing in there. The prospects are not inviting. I will not go."

  In the previous age of magic, when creatures such as this fulfilled the roles that integrators played in my own time, their masters must have had recourse to spells that compelled their obedience. I would have to ask Osk Rievor if he could find one, I decided. But first I would have to survive my present circumstances. I attempted to impose my will through sheer force of personality.

  "Go!” I said.

  "No,” it said.

  "Let us seek a compromise,” I offered. “If we stand out here, we will die of the cold. Our only hope is to find Ewern Chaz's remains and convince the Gallivant's integrator that he is dead. That will break its allegiance to him, making it amenable to taking us away from here."

  "I hear no compromise,” my assistant said, “only a rationale for why I should risk my frail flesh while you stand out here, hoping for the best."

  "Would you at least peek around the corner and report back to me?"

  The small triangular face looked up at me from within my garment. “I suspect that Chaz, Saviene, Morven, and Choweri did just that, each in his turn. And, for each, it was his last peek ever. So, no."

  "What if I tied a rope to you so that I could pull you out in the event of any unfortunate....” I concluded the sentence with a gesture.

  "Have you a rope?"

  "We might get one from the Gallivant."

  It stroked the tuft of longer fur at the point of its small chin. “What if, when some lurking horror pounces, you simply drop the rope and run?"

  "I would hope I am not a coward,” I said.

  "There is only one way to test that hope. If your expectation was not rewarded, the outcome might well see you scampering away to a safe distance, there to reflect on a new illumination of your character while I am masticated by some foul thing's dripping mandibles."

  "Very well,” I said. “I will tie my end of the rope firmly to my wrist. Your apprehended beast may then take you for an appetizer and me for the main course."

  It signaled a reluctant acceptance, adding, “If we can get a rope."

  "We will now ask the Gallivant. Connect me."

  The ship's integrator's voice spoke from the air near my ear that was now aching from the cold, “Have you located Ewern Chaz?"

  "I have not."

  It broke the connection.

  I bid my assistant reconnect me. When the ship began to pose the same question, I spoke over it and said, “I require a rope."

  "Why?"

  "To look for your employer."

  "The other three did not require a rope."

  "And none of them ever reported back. Perhaps the absence of a rope was a crucial factor."

  "Why would that be?"

  "It would be premature to say."

  It was silent for a moment, then it said, “I will open a cargo hatch near the aft obviator. There are ropes within."

  * * * *

  "Nothing so far,” my assistant said. It took another step along the passage. “The sour odor is stronger and I definitely hear the sound of breathing, from multiple sources."

  "Be careful,” I said. I had my eye pressed to the fissure, watching the odd little creature edge forward, the rope snug about its narrow waist. I was struck by how frail its shoulders looked.

  It took another step and I let another coil of the rope snake free of my tethered wrist. My unencumbered hand was nestled in a utility pocket of my breeches. I had seen no need to advise my integrator that my fingers were snug around a small folding blade.

  My assistant was just short of the point at which the crevice turned. “It appears to be a sharp-angled bend,” it reported to me, then craned its thin neck a little farther forward. “The glow comes from an organic substance that coats the wall beyond."

  It hesitated, shivers rippling the fur of its back. Then it took another step and turned to face whatever was beyond the turn. I saw it freeze, its front faintly illuminated by the ghostly light.

  "What do you see?” I said.

  It did not answer, but stood inert, its mouth falling agape. Then something like a thick tendril of faintly luminous stuff came into view, slowly unwinding from the hidden inner wall. It reached to touch my assistant's shoulder then, questing like a blind worm, it thickened as it groped its way toward the grinnet's slack lips.

  I jerked on the rope, pulling the small creature toward me. But the glowing tentacle spasmed. Its surface had some means of gripping what it touched and I saw that it had snagged the fur of my assistant's shoulder. I pulled sharply, so that the integrator's apelike feet left the dusty floor of the passage and it was suspended between the tether and the glowing pseudopod, now grown almost as thick as my wrist, that held it.

  A second tendril now appeared. I did not hesitate, but seized the rope with both hands and yanked as hard as I could. My assistant came free of its grip, tumbling along the dusty floor to where I could reach within and scoop it up. I tucked it into my mantle and ran. But when I had put some distance between us and the crevice I looked back and saw nothing but the dark slope.

  I sat with my back to the wind and drew the grinnet from my garment. A patch of fur was missing from its shoulder. It looked up at me with vacant eyes then it blinked and I saw awareness come back into its gaze. “Remarkable,” it said.

  * * * *

  "'What do you want?’ That's what it kept asking me. ‘What do you want?’”

  I had found a small cul-de-sac eroded into a cliff wall a few hundred paces from the crevice, wher
e we could shelter from the wind. We had not been pursued. My assistant huddled against my torso, inside my garment. I did not think its shivering was entirely attributable to the cold.

  "I felt at ease,” it continued. “Warm and untroubled, surrounded by a nebulous, golden....” it sought for an elusive word, “...noneplace. Time seemed to stretch and slow while out of the fog came images, offered like items on a menu—landscapes, situations, possessions, personas. I saw a succession of creatures that resembled me, some obviously female, others definitely male, then a few that were indeterminate."

  "It was tempting you,” I said.

  "I suppose,” it said. “I've never been tempted so I am not familiar with the process. My clear impression was that it would endeavor to supply whatever I desired."

  "Rather, the illusion thereof."

  "Yes, but it was a most convincing illusion. Then, when it touched me, I was instantly aware of the others. I not only saw and heard them, but received a strong sense of each's thoughts and feelings.

  "Ewern Chaz was addressing a gathering of spelunking enthusiasts, showing them images of a vast warren of caves he had discovered and mapped. His presentation was being received with delirious applause.

  "Orlo Saviene ruled a kingdom of happy folk who constantly sought his guidance on how their lives should proceed and were delighted with the advice he dispensed and the strictures he ordained.

  "Franj Morven was regaling a grand colloquium with pithy observations and incisive arguments. He was frequently interrupted by spontaneous applause, and once the assembled scholars lifted him onto their shoulders and paraded him around the great hall, singing that old march, Attaboy.

  "And Chup Choweri was walking a moonlit beach—lit by two moons, in fact—hand in hand with a facsimile of Effrayne. Of all of the captives, including the scattering of insects whose simple wants were fully met, only Choweri was not happy. He kept looking into the woman's eyes, and each time his tears flowed."

  It broke off and its befurred face assumed a wistful cast. “I was not aware that there were so many shades of emotion,” it said. “I mean, I knew in an abstract way that such feelings existed, but it is a different thing to experience them, even as echoes."

  The thing in the crevice was some sort of vegetative symbiote, I conjectured. It fed its companions foods that it manufactured from air, water, subterranean temperature variances (if it had deep roots), and probably other lichens as well as minerals leached from the rock. In return it received its partners’ waste products. It initially beckoned its symbiotes with light and warmth then kept them in place by stimulating their neural processes with pleasant sensory impressions.

  I could not be sure if it wove its spell with chemical-laden spores or straight telepathy, but it made no difference. My assistant had displayed for me the images its percepts had automatically recorded, even as it was being seduced: the four men lay or sat against the wall of the cave, completely covered in a luminescent blanket. Pulsing tentacles of the stuff penetrated their several orifices. Chup Choweri struggled fitfully against the symbiote's embrace; the other three were inert, wearing smiles of bliss. I doubted they could be easily extracted from their situation.

  "There was one other thing,” my assistant said. “It has learned a great deal from contact with the men. It explores their memories while feeding them dreams. Yet it craves more."

  "That argues for telepathy,” I said. “It ransacks their minds."

  "The point is,” the grinnet said, “that the symbiote has a craving of its own. It hungered to explore my stores of knowledge, which are capacious."

  "The desires of lichen, even astounding lichen, are not our concern,” I said. “We can now report to the Gallivant that its employer is effectively dead. That should break its crush on Ewern Chaz and allow us to return home. Then we can give the bad news to Effrayne Choweri and collect the balance of our fee."

  "That would seem a hardship on our client,” the grinnet said. “As well, the ship's inamoration with its employer may not be so easily extinguished. It may require us to attempt a rescue."

  "The attempt would fail. My intellect is powerful, but it is not proof against telepathy augmented, I do not doubt, by chemical assault."

  "I will contact the Gallivant and offer a proposal,” it said.

  "What proposal?” I said. “I have not authorized you to make any...."

  But its face had already taken on that blank look that said it was communicating elsewhere. Then it blinked and said, “The proposal has been accepted."

  * * * *

  Bille was a dwindling blip on the aft viewer as the Gallivant sped toward the whimsy that would drop us back in the neighborhood of Old Earth. I went to check on Chup Choweri in one of the spare cabins. He still exhibited lapses of awareness, but he was gradually regaining a persistent relationship with reality. It helped if he received unpleasant sensations, so I slapped him twice, then threw cold water on him.

  "Thank you,” he said, blinking. The pale patches where the lichen had attached itself to his skin—it deeply savored the components of human sweat—were darkening nicely. I handed him the medications for the upcoming transition and he lay back on the bunk.

  I returned to the saloon where my integrator had stationed itself in a niche on the forward bulkhead that had formerly held a decorative figurine. Its gaze was blank until I attracted its attention.

  "The whimsy approaches,” I said. “Are we ready?"

  "I have programmed the appropriate components,” it said. “I will retain consciousness until the last moment, then the automata ought to take us through."

  "And if they don't?"

  "Then we will discover what happens to those who enter a whimsy and do not re-emerge."

  "You seem complaisant,” I said. “After all, you have never been a ship's integrator before."

  "Call it ‘confident,'” it replied. “My experiences in the minds of Chaz, Saviene, Morven, and Choweri were broadening."

  "Indeed?” I said. “You feel that you have plumbed the depths of the human experience?"

  Its whiskery eyebrows rose in a kind of shrug. “Say that I have been given a good sense of how limited human ambitions can be,” it said. “When those four were asked, ‘What do you want?’ they had no trouble answering."

  "And you did?” I said.

  "Yes. No one had ever asked me the question before. And once I began to think about it, I found that it was a very big question indeed."

  "Ewern Chaz's integrator had no difficulty in answering. All it wanted was to be decanted into a mobile container and allowed to scuttle down the crevice and into the lichen-encrusted arms of its employer."

  The grinnet paused a moment to do something with the ship's systems, then said, “It was insane. Its pining for Chaz was prima facie proof of a crush."

  I made a dismissive sound. “It matters not. It is now happy. Chaz, Saviene, and Morven are also happy, as is their vegetative partner now that it has an integrator's data stacks to explore. Soon it will be the best-informed lichen in the history of simple plants.” I gestured to the rear cabins “And Chup Choweri will shortly be content again in the arms of the doting Effrayne, who may well bestow upon us a bonus when she learns what we have done."

  I gestured to the walls of the saloon. “And even I am happy, now that I am the owner of a modest but well-maintained spaceship.” The Gallivant's former integrator had deeded the Aberrator over to me in exchange for my assistance in decanting it into the mobile unit.

  The grinnet regarded me with an expression that I could not quite identify, and that I was sure I had not seen on its odd little face before. “And what of me?” it said. “What of my happiness?"

  I blinked in surprise. It was not an issue that had ever come up before. I was about to say something on the theme of prematurity, but at that moment the grinnet blinked and sounded the ship's chimes. We were approaching the whimsy.

  * * * *

  I had hired Tesko Tabanooch to attend the esta
te auction wearing my surveillance suite. A nondescript man of unmemorable appearance, he was waiting on my doorstep when the aircar brought me home after I had delivered Chup Choweri into his spouse's comprehensive embrace. We went up to my workroom, where he produced the knickknacks he had bid for, as part of his cover, while I transferred the suite's impressions to my integrator. Tabanooch looked with curiosity at the grinnet but I offered no explanations. I paid him and he departed. Then I summoned Osk Rievor and turned over control of our body.

  He came gladly out of his introspections, dismissed the Tabanooch's brummagem from the auction at a glance, but regarded with deep interest the operative's records of the event. He had the integrator identify and cross-reference as many as possible of the attendees, from which exercise he reached conclusions that he did not share with me, but which caused him to say, “Hmm” and “Oh, ho!” a number of times.

  Tabanooch had toured the presale exhibition and examined all items closely. My alter ego reviewed the impressions, pronouncing Vollone to be a forgery and the man who bid high for it a fool. But the summoning ring was genuine, he declared, though it had long since lost all its store of power; still, if someone could revive the technique for recharging it, the object would become of great interest.

  He spent quite some time studying the impressions of the person who bought it, a tall and supple female of indeterminate age who identified herself as Madame Oole. Despite his best efforts, Tabanooch had been unable to obtain a completely clear image of her. Somehow, other persons or objects always seemed to interpose themselves between her and the surveillance suite's percepts whenever she was at the center of their scans.

  "We must look into her,” Osk Rievor told me, when he had seen all there was to see, “preferably before she looks into us."

  He turned to our assistant and said, “I want you to assemble a dossier on this Madame Oole. Chase down the smallest scrap of data, the most fleeting of impressions by anyone who has crossed her path."

  It turned its lambent eyes on us and said, “That will be a great deal of effort. What will I get out of it?"